DADT Case Goes to Supreme Court

The Log Cabin Republicans have asked the US Supreme Court to reinstate Judge Virginia Phillips’ injunction prohibiting the US military from enforcing its ban on open homosexual service. The military has said DADT will continue to be enforced during appeal.

In perhaps the supremest of ironies, the request lands on the desk of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Some have speculated that DADT would be 4-4 at the court, with Kennedy being the deciding vote.

The filing demonstrates a self-righteous and self-centered attitude toward military service, as well as ignorance toward the military culture in general. In their justification for reinstating the injunction, the Plaintiffs said

Phillips’ order “does not order the military to redesign its barracks, to retool its pay scales or benefits, to reordain its chaplains, to rewrite its already extensive anti-harassment or ‘dignity and respect'” rules, or anything else,” they said.

The Plaintiffs may have made the Defense’s case for them. While the ruling did not order the military to do those things, it had an effect on military policies and procedures that the LCRs seem to be intentionally dismissing. In the most obvious example, the court order did not order the military to begin accepting declared homosexuals for enlistment, yet the military began to do that very thing. The effect of the ruling was to eliminate the basis for denying those enlistments.

The Supreme Court has long deferred to the military in its ability to make such logistical decisions. It has also deferred to Congress with respect to its Consitutional powers to raise armies. (In this case, even the Executive Branch wants the stay to stand.)

Despite the Plaintiff’s dismissive attitude toward the military, Kennedy may be able to sustain the stay based on those effects alone.